Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi heading for legislature after byelection win

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi has won a byelection in Edmonton-Strathcona, according to unofficial results posted online by Elections Alberta.

With all polls reporting, Nenshi's company fellow worker Gurtej Singh Brar was also leading in the Edmonton-Ellerslie  rush. And in exchange Alberta, the United conservativist Party hung onto a seat in Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills. 

With all polls in Edmonton-Strathcona reporting, Nenshi had 7,952 of the 9,665 votes counted, or about 82 per cent of the ballots. The UCP candidate Darby Crouch earned 14 per cent of the vote.

"This is your result, your victory," Nenshi told supporters gathered at a south Edmonton hotel for a victory party.

"It's your inroads you made tonight."

Nenshi defeated five other candidates who ran for the UCP, Liberal Party, Alberta Party, Republican Party of Alberta and the Wildrose Loyalty Coalition. 

Political newcomer Tara Sawyer of the UCP is poised to be the next MLA for Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills, staving off a threat from the Opposition and an invigorated separatist party.

With all polls reporting, Sawyer had 61 per cent, or 9,363 of the 15,318 votes tallied. NDP candidate Bev Toews came in second place with 20 per cent of the vote, and Republican Party of Alberta leader Cam Davies was in third, with 18 per cent of the vote. Wildrose Loyalty Coalition candidate Bill Tufts was in a distant fourth place.

Sawyer told supporters gathered at a hotel in Olds, which is 96 kilometres north of Calgary, she feels honoured voters recognized she was the right person for the job.

She told reporters the intrigue with a separatist candidate shows how frustrated rural Albertans are with the federal government, and that it's time the Liberal government take Alberta's interests more seriously. Sawyer said citizens told her this while she was door knocking during the campaign.

"What I kept telling them, and what they clearly recognized, is we didn't need a divisive party," Sawyer said. "We need to remain strong, and we already have a government that's working every day on all the issues that are frustrating them."

The seat was vacated by former legislature Speaker and longtime UCP MLA Nathan Cooper, who resigned last month to become Alberta's representative in Washington, D.C.

Cooper was at Sawyer's victory party in Olds on Monday night, and congratulated her with a hug.

Republican Party leader Davies said he's undeterred by the byelection result.

"There is a growing movement of conservatives who are not happy with the status quo and that movement is not going away anytime soon," Davies said.

As Premier Smith prepares to launch an "Alberta Next" panel on Tuesday in Calgary, to gather ideas on how Alberta can bolster its sovereignty, Davies said the time for panels, studies, and recommendations is done.

"Albertans want now more than ever action on the policies that matter most to them," he said. "And so we're going to fight for those issues."

The NDP's result garnering 20 per cent of the votes is on par with the party's result in the 2023 provincial general election.

In a statement, candidate Bev Toews said she saw progress in the conversations she had with rural residents.

"The opportunity to stand up for Canada and against separatism was a highlight for me this campaign," she said.

Alberta NDP members chose Nenshi to lead the NDP at a Calgary convention a year ago following Rachel Notley's resignation as leader. Nenshi, who served as mayor of Calgary from 2010 to 2021, won the leadership contest in a landslide.

Since becoming leader, Nenshi has been without a seat in the legislature, saying he would wait to run until a vacancy in an Edmonton or Calgary riding became available.

In his byelection victory speech Monday night, Nenshi thanked the voters of Edmonton-Strathcona for being welcoming and making him feel at home.

"And I promise I will be your number one advocate," he said.

Hinting at the projected result in the Olds-Didsbury-Three Hills byelection, Nenshi said if voters take anything from Monday's results, it should be Albertans' weak appetite for separation from Canada.

Nenshi reiterated the NDP's dedication to publicly-funded and accessible health care, a robust public education system, workers' rights, affordability and community safety.

Political pundits said they'd be watching the race closely in Edmonton-Ellerslie as an indicator of how robust NDP support remains in Edmonton. If Monday's byelection results are made official, all seats in the City of Edmonton will remain in NDP hands.

The NDP's Brar, a Punjabi-language broadcaster and "self-taught tech enthusiast," according to his campaign website, captured 51 per cent of the 8,511 byelection votes cast. He previously won a competitive NDP nomination contest against three other community leaders.

UCP candidate and former Progressive Conservative MLA Naresh Bhardwaj, earned about 38 per cent of the votes. The result was a narrower margin of victory for the NDP, who won the riding by 25 percentage points in the 2023 provincial election.

Brar's campaign did not respond to messages on Monday night.

In a statement after his win, Brar said he would fight for better health care, education, community safety, and a south Edmonton hospital — a project cancelled by the government.

"Tonight, we've sent a clear message to Danielle Smith and the UCP: our community is demanding better," his statement said.

Manpreet Tiwana, the Alberta Liberal candidate, came in third and captured about five per cent of the vote. That party has not elected an MLA to the legislature since 2015.

When the legislature rose in May, there were 46 UCP MLAs, 36 from the NDP, and two independents. The legislature is set to reconvene on the last week of October.

Provincial affairs reporter

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